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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympic flame begins relay across France

The French leg of the Paris Olympic flame relay began Thursday in the southern port city of Marseille, a day after it arrived from Greece on a 19th century ship.

Published: 9 May 2024 09:42 CEST

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French former football player Basile Boli holds the Olympic Torch as part of the Olympic and Paralympic Torch Relays at the Notre Dame de la Garde Basilica, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in Marseille, southeastern France, on May 9th, 2024. Photo by: CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP

French former star footballer Basile Boli carried the torch from a majestic cathedral overlooking the city and handed it over to 83-year-old Colette Cataldo.

The event drew dozens of spectatators including Marseille Archbishop Jean-marc Aveline.

“That really makes the heart beat fast and it’s fantastic,” said Boli after handing over the torch.

“It’s the Olympic flame, it’s the symbol of sport and of living together”, he said.

It marked the start of a 12,000-kilometre (7,500-mile) torch relay across France and its far-flung overseas territories.

The opening ceremony for the Olympics on July 26 will take place in boats on the river Seine in a radical departure from past Games which have opened in the main stadium.

Organisers are hoping the first public spectacle of the Games on French soil will help build excitement after a row about the price of Olympics tickets and concerns about security.

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Paris Olympics organisers deny athletes' beds are 'anti-sex'

The clarification came after fresh reports that the beds, manufactured by Japanese company Airweave and already used during the Tokyo 2020 Games, were to deter athletes from jumping under the covers together in the City of Love.

“We know the media has had a lot of fun with this story since Tokyo 2020, but for Paris 2024 the choice of these beds for the Olympic and Paralympic Village is primarily linked to a wider ambition to ensure minimal environmental impact and a second life for all equipment,” a spokesman for the Paris Games told AFP.

The bed bases are made from recycled cardboard, but during a demonstration in July last year Airweave founder Motokuni Takaoka jumped on one of them and stressed that they “can support several people on top”.

The Paris Games spokesman underlined that “the quality of the furniture has been rigorously tested to ensure it is robust, comfortable and appropriate for all the athletes who will use it, and who span a very broad range of body types – from gymnasts to judokas”.

The fully modular Airweave beds can be customised to accommodate long and large body sizes, with the mattresses — made out of resin fibre — available with different firmness levels.

After the Games, the bed frames will be recycled while the mattresses and pillows will be donated to schools or associations.

Athletes will sleep in single beds, two or three to a room, in the village, a newly built complex close to the main athletics stadium in a northern suburb of the capital.

A report this week in the New York Post tabloid entitled “‘Anti-sex’ beds have arrived at Paris Olympics” was reported by other media and widely circulated on social media.

Similar claims went viral before the Tokyo Olympics, sometimes fanned by athletes themselves.

To debunk them, Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan filmed a video of himself jumping repeatedly on a bed to demonstrate their solidity.

At those Games, during the coronavirus pandemic, organisers, however, urged athletes to “avoid unnecessary forms of physical contact”.

In March, Laurent Dalard, in charge of first aid and health services at Paris 2024, said around 200,000 condoms for men and 20,000 for women will be made available at the athletes’ village during the Games.

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